Sarah Ruhls plays include In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, The Clean House, Passion Play, Dead Mans Cell Phone, Melancholy Play, For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday, The Oldest Boy, Stage Kiss, Dear Elizabeth, Eurydice, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, Orlando, Late You'll have to sign in before you share your experience. The play begins with Eurydice and Orpheus, two young lovers, who are about to get married. Emily Grim finds the sweetness and sorrow in Eurydice, a young woman led astray by her innocence and cruelly doomed to forget the essence of her being. Auditions On May 4th: please arrive in the lobby of Nichols Hall between 6-9:30pm. Just answer a few questions. He demands his wife, and the Lord of the Underworld states the condition of her return: Start walking home. Unlike Eurydice in Movement One, he does not have an umbrella to shield him from the rain inside the elevator. This pretense, this false assumption of dignity, I believe, is what makes people uncomfortable and what drives negative criticism of the play: nobody likes to be called pretentious, yet the only way to comprehend the play is to pretend. Continue to give yourself to others because that's the ultimate satisfaction in life--to love, accept, honor and help others. The Stones are happy now that Eurydice is dead again. Orpheus sends another letter, and then resolves to go to the underworld himself to find her. I write you letters. The Father, dressed in a grey suit, reads from a letter. Kind of. Context:Eurydice has reconnected with her dead Father in the Underworld. report form. Samuel French, 2008. - Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice . Isherwood, Charles. They wear swimming outfits from the 1950s. Has an innocence and a desire for adventure. [16], The play was presented in London at the Young Vic Theatre in May 2010, after a tour starting at the Drum Theatre, Plymouth, on February 25, 2010, and finally playing at the Young Vic's Maria Studio, starting in previews April 29. Sarah Ruhl's plays include the Pulitzer Prize finalists In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) and The Clean House, as well as How to transcend a happy marriage, For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday, Passion Play, Dean Man's Cell Phone, Eurydice, Melancholy Play, and Late: a cowboy song. [3][4] It next was presented at Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut, in September 2006 to October 14, directed by Les Waters, with Maria Dizzia (Eurydice) and Joseph Parks (Orpheus). There is one condition: If he turns to look at her, they will be separated forever. Because Eurydice loved to read, Orpheus sends her the Collected Works of Shakespeare, but she only shouts at the book, What do you do? Take care to change the light bulbs. How can you think about music? Her awards include a MacArthur Fellowship, and her book of essays 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It was an astonishing production: I was mesmerized by the lightness of the language, the depth of the characters, the beauty of the set, and the extraordinary emotional resonance of the storytelling. She tries to imitate. Eurydice decides to go to his apartment to retrieve the letter, but as she leaves his apartment after resisting the man's attempts to seduce her, she trips and falls to her death on the stairs. Amy Tamblidge, this totally annoying born again "ho" with giant tits talking about her dreams for global peace, Randall Betrick ranting on about his parents divorce again, Trey . He makes a gesture of giving the sea to Eurydice. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. . The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. Full of dark humor, lyrical beauty, and wit, Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice transforms a traditional myth into a visceral, contemporary meditation on love worth grieving for. Eurydice and her Father converse, although she misunderstands most of his meaning, since he can remember her, but she has no memory of him. 3. The most noticeable of these changes was that in the myth Orpheus succumbs to his desires and looks back at Eurydice, while in Ruhl's version Eurydice calls out to Orpheus (causing him to look back) perhaps in part because of her fear of reentering the world of the living and perhaps as a result of her desire to remain in the land of the dead with her father. [14] It ran at American Players Theatre (Spring Green, Wisconsin) under the direction of Tyne Rafaeli in June to October 2016. The cost and license availability quoted are estimates only and may differ when you apply for a license. Orpheus journeys to retrieve his bride, but Eurydice has begun to discover that the cost of living again can sometimes exceed the cost of staying dead. We recommend finding your monologues in published plays and reading the whole play before performing your monologue. This time, he is in the elevator that rains on the inside. In Eurydice Ruhl does more than challenge the classical; she demands responsibility for the failures of language and for the pretense those failures necessitate. Whatever makes you happy. But I still love you, I think. Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl. I didn't know an argument should be interesting. All included titles: From Up Here by Liz Flahive Collective Dating: Natural Dating by VB . Also, I am one of the few dead people who still remembers how to read and write. % Eurydice - Play. It can be interesting to see if other peoplelike dead people who wrote booksagree or disagree with what you think. He wrote that libretto; thanks to Ruhl's lucidity, "Eurydice," first heard in February 2020 at Los Angeles Opera, is a clearer, stronger work. Don't be mad. In their version, Eurydice is not merely Orpheus's wife, a nymph whose untimely death pushes her husband to perform his most famous musical feat. Show me your body, he said. Sarah Ruhl re-imagines the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine. The story is familiar. Start planning your production with a cost estimate you can save and share with your team. It only means one thing.Or maybe two or three things. The first takes place only in the world above. Then she dips herself in the river. . Context: Eurydice has reconnected with her dead Father in the Underworld. I was thinking about you. Tilly's melancholy is of an exquisite quality. Yes! You either hear it or you dont. This will help you to better understand the character, his or her situation, the intended audience reaction, and the context for the piece. Will you remember my melody under the water? And arguments that are interesting are good arguments? Shut up! (Ruhl 2006, 405). View full profile. In silence the third scene passes. His crown falls down around his ear. Show:EurydicePlaywright: Sarah RuhlStyle: ContemporaryGenre:DramedyLength:1-2 minutes, Character: EurydiceGender: FemaleAge: Teenager/Young Adult, Scene: Second Movement, Scene 16Setting:The String Room in the Underworld. He would get a funny look on his face and I would say what are you thinking about and he would always be thinking about music. However, when Big Stone directs us to pretend for a moment that you understand the language of stones, the line suggests that some people may not understand all that the playwright is trying to convey. Because he is a young prince and his robes are too heavy on him. Opera; libretto; Associated Music Publishers Inc; musicsalesclassical.com; 59969 Character: Mrs. Givings, Dr. Givings' wife. Eurydice Paperback - January 1, 2008. Nottage, however, learned she needed to open her play up to embrace the form; prose expanded to . 4 0 obj Join StageAgent today and unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. Meanwhile, in the land of the living, Orpheus writes a letter to Eurydice, which her father delivers and reads to her. When Eurydice returns, her father is lying silent on the ground, having lost all of his language and memory forever. EURYDICE: Written by playwright Sarah Ruhl, the play tells the traditional myth from the female perspective of Orpheus' bride . Her father, who was not held in the river long enough, still remembers how to read and write. Yannick Nzet-Sguin oversees the December 4 transmission, leading Aucoin's evocative music and an immersive new staging by Mary Zimmerman. Love, . With contemporary characters, ingenious plot twists, and breathtaking visual . "Doubt" by John Patrick Shanley. Sarah Ruhl (born January 24, 1974) is an American playwright, professor, and essayist. At last one does. T$"*Km+.B)h)wAuj2$mr*1Ac@ze28qSMeBKwXd%U4wQ1}j#Sz,O^.6`V8BMq~q4 -LT09XR^-0(tM7^i5srgn3[%;G[tyQk0F1I}Q4:Fxp!M_:IRS7(6qCF Eurydice is lost to death forever. As Eurydice mourns her father, the lord of the underworld returns, having grown from a child to superhuman height. She now holds Monologue: "He's taken an interest. He had his music. CHARACTERS: Eurydice Her Father Orpheus A Nasty Interesting Man/The Lord of the Underworld. He tells The Lord of the Underworld he has come to lead his wife to the world above. What do you DO?! Please try again later. n &8,+6nn;L C4_[m9 7/&'Gm*:y^$~%9b6%p-gA{^K0[5EwbFFE ./_Vkt!_m%EAUho@|Nvw2 (aS^AIN']> N(y}y}sh%T%0E_W[c9T{{1rfBrUdyhM#F>^>wh5Ne4,E?vbir~ar4E-6d;L HR/HH3 ]`9nCXNo #. She earned her MFA at Brown University, where she drafted Eurydice in 2001; it premiered in Madison in 2003 and made its New York premiere off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre in 2007. But the clouds will be so moved by your music that they will fill up with water until they become heavy and you'll sit on one and fall gently down to earth. In the underworld, Eurydice's dead father has managed to preserve his memory and his ability to read and write, and tries to send her letters. It had its Metropolitan Opera premiere on November 23, 2021. You know? The second and the third take place only in the underworld. You would be lonely for music. It only means one thing. Maybe you should make up your own thoughts. Orpheus never liked words. Rain inside an elevator is both impossible and improbable and therefore poetic. Weckwerth, Wendy. His breath will propel him, and he will be swept to the underworld. A luminous retelling of the Orpheus myth, lush and limpid as a dream where both author and audience swim in the magical, sometimes menacing, and always thrilling flow of the unconscious." Research Playwrights, Librettists, Composers and Lyricists. As you walk, keep your eyes facing front. Sarah Ruhl's wildly imaginative bittersweet comedy EURYDICE reimagines the classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice not through Orpheus's infamous pilgrimage to retrieve his bride, but through the eyes of its heroine. He flirts with her. An archive of monologues that I have used or plan to use for auditions, and that you might find useful too. Directed by Les Waters, Associate Artistic Director, the cast featured Maria Dizzia as Eurydice and Daniel Talbott as Orpheus. The play was adapted by Ruhl for the libretto of an opera by the same name, with music composed by Matthew Aucoin, and directed by Mary Zimmerman. Everything in moderation. Surely not--surely not the sky and the stars too. Sarah Ruhl received the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 for her play "The Clean House," which has been produced at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia, South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, and Woolly Mammoth . 2006. I am going to write out instructions for your next wife. I don't know how to get them to you. Audiences are at once struck by the sound of falling water. But he is always going away from you. Eurydice arrives in the Underworld in the raining elevator. << /Length 5 0 R /Filter /FlateDecode >> Instead, Ruhl adds the Father, in a move that is intensely autobiographical. Fees and availability are subject to change during the application process. our global village, blah blah blah. Community. You may also be asked to read sides. Lahr, John. If the Lord of the Underworld finds out, he will be dipped again. I dont know what came over me. Sarah Ruhl and Matthew Aucoin's "Eurydice" aims to break down this Orphean monopoly on the story and explore it from the opposing viewpoint of his dead wife. Show me your body, he said. So people want to stick around. She does not recognize him. It only means one thing.". On the day of her wedding, Eurydice falls victim to a tragic accident that sends her hurtling into a wonderland of an Underworld: ripped from her beloved Orpheus, the greatest musician in the world, Eurydice is reunited with her dead father in the Land of the Dead. by Sarah Ruhl. Shes gone (Ruhl 2006, 391). Dying too young on her wedding day, Eurydice must journey to the underworld, where she reunites with her father and struggles to remember her lost love. Words can mean anything. World Premiere. "Eurydice's" unique qualities came to the fore in its Metropolitan . Text for monologue \"EURYDICE\" by --Sarah Ruhl below :))Orpheus never liked words. More Invisible Terrains: Sarah Ruhl, Interviewed by Wendy Weckwerth, Theater 34.2: 28-35. Ellen Bauerle is executive editor and senior acquisitions editor for Classics and Archaeology, African Studies, Medieval Studies, and Early Modern History at the University of Michigan Press. Eurydice -- Dramatic comedy / 5m, 2f / Unit set -- In Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl reimagines the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine. Mything Persons, The Village Voice, June 19, 2007. http://tinyurl.com/pxhow7o, accessed July 24, 2015 Eurydice is an opera composed by Matthew Aucoin with a libretto by Sarah Ruhl based on her 2003 play of the same name, a retelling of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.It had its premiere at the Los Angeles Opera on February 1, 2020, with Aucoin conducting. Your father. To my mind, the success of this play lies in the way it attracts and repels audiences by professing its own pretensions. When he sees it is addressed to her, he puts it into the breast pocket of his shirt. Synopsis: A woman tries to say a few words at her son's funeral, but when a cell phone rings, she digresses into a frustrated funny tangent about the ills of cell phones in modern life. They should resist the temptation to be classical. Pretend or shell be embarrassed; pretend for a moment. ORPHEUS: (Ruhl play) Eurydice is a 2003 play by Sarah Ruhl which retells the myth of Orpheus from the perspective of Eurydice, his wife. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Thus, even the theme is the same: the fallibility of the human condition and the inability of art to triumph over the persistence of suffering and the finality of death. 1995. - Variety, "Touching, inventive, invigoratingly compact and luminously liquid in its rhythms and design, Eurydice reframes the ancient myth of ill-fated love to focus not on the bereaved musician but on his dead bride - and on her struggle with love beyond the grave as both wife and daughter." Rooms are also not allowed in the underworld, but Eurydice's father creates one for her out of pieces of string. I'm 21 years old, blond hair, blue eyes (you could say I am the girl next door type) I want to find some new material that is not overly used in the audition room. I want you to be happy. New York: Theatre Communications Group I should have realized that women envied me. During the time she wrote the play, Ruhl was facing the death of her father. an old-fashioned glow-in-the-dark globe. DV+Po^Vp4*ogonY::]`(. The play received several award nominations, including the 2008 Drama League Award, Distinguished Production of a Play, and the 2008 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Set Design of a Play, (Scott Bradley). EURYDICE: The Chorus of Stones in unison explain that Eurydice wants to speak to you. ORPHEUS: I want you to be happy. He picks up the letter which he can no longer read. I wanted to write something where I would be allowed to have a few more conversations with him (Weckwerth 30). The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. Your hair will be my orchestra and--I love you. If I were to give a speech at your wedding I would start with one or two funny jokes and then I might offer some words of advice. Concord Theatricals She deliberately causes him to turn around so she can return to the underworld and be with her father. 3. New York, NY 10107-0102, "Rhapsodically beautiful. Ruhl made several changes to the original myth's story-line. Eurydice. Female monologues from published plays? That will do, Eurydice says as if to a stranger. When thou dost ask my blessing, Ill kneel down and ask of thee forgiveness; so well live, and pray and sing (Ruhl 2006, 377). They make a quarter turn and he makes a sweeping gesture. That's true. I wasnt thinking. Start: Orpheus never liked words. The Hippodrome production of the play was quirky, no doubt: Eurydice wore legwarmers and the Lord of the Underworld, tricked out like Johnny Rotten (lead singer of the 1970s punk rock band the Sex Pistols), glided about on a Segway. As for me, this is what it's like being dead: The atmosphere smells. The Nasty Interesting Man lures her to his penthouse and attempts to seduce her. everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Eurydice. Just kidding. ORPHEUS: Seeking 2 Actor Team for Spring When hes sad, kiss his forehead and I will thank you. G>%rsnQBO$nHt}Qam?_@\RCUP!ovE(}{t@`lIt^6({ITm+BO,m.`wZ;NxaJTmz^+9Ks26kKZR,yP"HFq}>F}F3I^UqVj+,FE>q*H$V'|af|fu~5n!z$ 95 But he is always going away from you. When Eurydice returns to the underworld in Movement Three, she finds her father has dipped himself into the river. The set contains a raining elevator, Eurydice. Lead Characters. I thought it should be right or wrong. In Ruhl's adaptation, Eurydice (Kayla Carter) is tricked into dying by a Nasty, Interesting Man (Michael Manocchio) on the night of her wedding to musical Orpheus (Topher Embrey). Eurydice is then faced with the decision to either stay with her father or go back with her husband. The Nasty Interesting Man makes a sexual advance on Eurydice while she is in his apartment. When are you going to play me the whole song? She agrees to come with him to his apartment and get the letter. Melancholy but playful, Ruhl's reimagining tells the myth from the doomed heroine's point of view, creating what Aucoin calls an . Rooney, David. Sign up today to unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. The play opens with Orpheus and Eurydice at the beach. When she tries to descend his high staircase, she falls and descends into the underworld. bauerle97@gmail.com, 2022 Society for Classical Studies | Privacy Policy, Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl: The Power of Pretense, Outline of SCS Governance, Reports, and Official Statements, Ancient Worlds, Modern Communities (formerly Classics Everywhere), Careers for Classicists: Graduate Student Edition, Data and Reports from Professional Matters Division, List of CFPs, Society Announcements, and Other News, Recurring Programs and Publications in Classics, Handbook for Liberal Arts College Chairs and Directors of Undergraduate Classics Departments and Programs, Latin Teacher Certification Requirements (by US state), Careers for Classicists: Undergraduate Edition, Awards, Fellowships from US-based organizations, http://variety.com/2007/legit/reviews/eurydice-4-1200558476/. Since Donald went on the altar boysThere was alcohol on his breath.". Eurydice - Play. 4.15. The story focuses on Eurydice's choice to return to earth with Orpheus or to stay in the underworld with her father (a character created by Ruhl). It opened Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theater in 2007. He drops the letter as though into a mail-slot. He dismantles the room of stringthe space made of tension and void in which he could communicate with his daughter. For contemporary American playwright Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice is foremost a daughter who learns the hard way that all relationships are constructed of words that cannot always withstand the insistent tensions and demands of parents and spouses. The play should be performed without an intermission. It was a series of monologues and choral chanting with yoga-base movement, and featured the usual cast of characters. Their husbands talked too much. - The New York Times, "Exhilarating! This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. When Ruhl was twenty years old, her father died of bone cancer. But I wanted to talk to him about my notions.